


Danse Macabre Danse

by Gnomeskillet



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, HopePunk, Mad Science, Transhumanism, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 23:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnomeskillet/pseuds/Gnomeskillet
Summary: The story of a Forsaken surgeon and his Abomination son, and their adventures in Science!---The fun thing about Forsaken characters is just. All the weird things you can do with them. This is me exploring some of the weird things that can be done with them, and the whole... what does it mean to be alive/a person concept. In this story, the answer will generally be a positive one, because I chose to believe in a positive answer.





	Danse Macabre Danse

Being brought to life was almost, but not quite like being turned on. 

One moment, he didn’t exist, and then the next, he did. Except he didn’t simply open his eyes and the world was there; being made from nothing was not that easy. Instead, he opened his eyes and threw his head back in a silent scream, his body convulsing uncontrollably as electricity coursed through him. His muscles twitched and jerked uncomfortably as sensation burned through his senses, the scent of ozone and something that could only be described as chemical flooding his nose.

Then as abruptly as it began, it was gone, and he was left with his chest heaving as air failed to pass through his nose or mouth.

For a moment, he simply lay there, scrambling for some sense of identity, some idea of self. When seemed forthcoming, he glanced around, searching for answers within his surroundings. He found himself strapped to a table with a pair of wooden blocks shoved between his teeth, machinery humming around him. As his eyes darted to the side, a person appeared, turning from a switch with a bright, beaming smile on their face and black, empty holes for eyes.

“Hey, baby,” they cooed soothingly, gliding across the room on rubber booted feet, the hem of their bloodstained, once-white lab coat ghosting just over their knees. Thin fingers encased in rubber gloves brushed over his forehead as they curled over him, absolute fondness radiating from their round face. “Everything’s okay. Daddy’s here. Can you speak?”

The question sounded unimaginably stupid, considering the blocks in his mouth that he simply sat there, staring at Daddy’s face.

Ugh. No, that felt wrong. Awkward. His mind quickly reeled though word associations, creating context from the clues he was being given. This person had given him life, but not in the usual method. He had been created from nothing, his consciousness spun forth fully formed and intelligent. A creator. A masculine creator, by the person’s own assertion, despite the softness of their features and the high timbre of their voice.

His thoughts passed in an instant as the creator laughed, bonking a palm against his own forehead before reaching for his creation’s mouth. “Of course, you’re right, how silly of me. I imagine it would be hard to speak with those things in the way. Let me just get those for you-”

He let the creator take the blocks from his mouth, relaxing his jaw enough that they could be removed, but not enough that they’d drop against the back of his throat, and as soon as they were going, his chest dropped and he worked his jaw until it settled more comfortably on his face. The creator watched expectantly, despite his lack of eyes, so he gave him a simple questioning “what?”

Except that he didn’t. His lips moved, he felt them form the of the word, but no sound came out. No air came out. His tongue clicked faintly against the roof of his mouth as he tapped out the “tuh” of a T, but otherwise? Nothing.

“Hrm, I was afraid of that,” the creator sighed, smile and shoulders drooping in disappointment, but the expression was short lived as they shrugged and turned away. “Well, at least it proves one theory true; breath is necessary for speaking, but aspiration is not required for life.”

“Hm!” the creator giggled to himself, his shoulders wiggling his delight as he conjured a book and quill from thin air, taking a moment to write down his observations. “This is such an exciting little experiment, I’m so glad for this opportunity to learn. You’re not uncomfortable, are you, dear?”

“You can just nod or shake your head, we can try talking again in a bit,” he added, reaching out with one hand to undo the strap holding his creation’s head in place.

As soon as his head was freed, the first thing he did was bob his head from side to side, rolling his shoulder with the motion. The vertebra of his neck cracked and popped with the motion, then he nodded. Even if cracking his neck lessened his discomfort, being strapped down spread eagle was far from pleasant.

And he was cold.

“I’m sorry,” the creator apologized sincerely, his eyes softening as he brushed his fingers over the goose pimples over his creation’s arm, an apologetic smile twisting the corner of his lips. “You’ll have to endure it for a bit longer. We have quite a list of tests to go through before I can let you up. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, baby, but Daddy’s work is important.”

What was Daddy’s work, and why was it important?

He thought about it, pondered quietly because he had nothing else he could do, while the creator wrote. He created from nothing. He brought life into the world using nothing but a body and electricity. He expressed concern and referred to his creation in affectionate, loving terms, but he didn’t care enough to give him a blanket.

He saw without eyes.

His own chest moved without breathing. He could feel it rising and falling, he could see pale skin that he knew belonged to him moving at the edge of his vision, but air didn’t pass through his lips and it certainly didn’t fill his lungs.

Was he alive, or simply functioning?

The thump of the creator’s journal snapping closed drew his attention, and the book disappeared in a cloud of arcane magic as he stood. He watched the creator cross the room, open a cabinet, and as wisps of condensed air swirled from its depths, he pulled out a gleaming metal cart. It rattled across the room as the creator pushed it to his creation’s bedside, and he was stunned to realize it held an entire humanoid torso. Though the stumps of the shoulders, thighs, and neck were sewn shut, an incision circled the chest and abdomen so that the flesh seemed to rest in place like the lid of a jar. 

When the creator lifted the top layer of skin and muscle and set it aside, when he pulled out a ribcage held together with wire and mesh, and pulled out a pair of lungs, frozen not quite solid, the creation felt his discomfort increase tenfold. As the lungs traveled from one torso to another, the creation lifted his head and found himself choking on nothing.

Suddenly, it was no wonder that no breath passed his lips to fill his lungs. He had no lungs! He had no anything! He had an incision in his chest in the shape of a Y that lead all the way down to his groin, his skin and muscles peeled backwards to expose his empty abdominal cavity to the air.

Since he could make no sound to express his distress, his torso convulsed as his shoulders tensed and his back arched off the table, the thick leather straps that held him down the only thing keeping him from bucking entirely. He furrowed his brow and curled his lips back from his teeth, chattering them against each other frantically.

“Oh no no no, baby!” the creator gasped, setting the lungs down in his creation’s chest cavity and quickly moving to soothe him, shushing him gently while cupping his face in his hands. “It’s okay, it’s okay! Daddy’s right here, and you’re fine. You’re fine and you’re safe and nothing is wrong with you, I promise, okay? It’s okay.”

Rubber covered thumbs caressed his face, brushing over his cheekbones right below his eyes, and it didn’t matter how gently, how lovingly the eyeless creator cooed, the creation shook and trembled from fear and confusion. His body was open! His was empty! He had no lungs, and he could not scream. How was any of this okay? How was he even alive?

“When this is over, I’m going to get you some tears,” the creator resolved, pressing lightly on his creation’s cheeks. “It’ll be a small, cosmetic thing, but if I’ve learned one thing, it’s often the small cosmetic things that keep you going.”

“In the meantime, we’ll skip the tests for now. I’m going to attach these lungs so you can speak, then I’ll fill you full of packing and sew you up, and we can talk, how does that sound? Does that sound okay?” He smiled so nicely, so expectantly, that his creation reluctantly agreed with a nod of his head. “That’s my brave boy.”

The creator’s smile grew ever warmer, the roundness of his cheeks standing out as he leaned in to press a kiss to his creation’s forehead.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured into his creation’s skin, cold, rubbery hands holding his head tight. “I know everything is scary and confusing right now, but I’m so proud of you. You haven’t done anything but exist so far, but I swear to you, your existence is the most precious thing in the world to me. You are my baby, my most perfect creation, and we are going to do such revolutionary things together.”

With his promise lingering in the air, the creator guided his creation’s head back to the table, laying it gently to rest against the cool metal. With a wave of his hand, he pulled a stool across the room, adjusting its height slightly as he sat down.

“This will probably hurt, I’m afraid,” he warned, fetching a spool of clear thread and a curved needle from the cart, measuring out an appropriate amount before cutting it with a scalpel. “But I’m going to need you to hold as still as possible. If you squirm too much, I might not be able to make a perfect seal, then I’ll have to do it over again. Can you do that for me, baby?”

He was growing tired of being called “baby,” but he nodded, swallowing nothing and forcing his muscles to relax. As it turned out, it didn’t hurt at all, but having lungs sewn to his esophagus wasn’t comfortable either. He felt the needle push against cartilage until it gave way, then he felt the string slide through it. It made his skin crawl, but he held still, his hands curling into fists against the table, staring blankly up at the ceiling. He felt it happen 25 times, he counted it happening, then suddenly, something clicked metaphorically into place, and he felt his chest rise, and he felt air flow past his lips, and he felt air fill his lungs.

“Oh,” he breathed, and the sound of his own voice startled him.

His creator laughed as he grabbed the scalpel, carefully trimming away the last of the thread. “That worked a lot better than I expected,” he exclaimed, raising his head to grin down at his creation. “I thought it would need a bit to recognize the new attachment, but it just clicked into place like a magnet, didn’t it? These bodies are so fascinating, I could study them endlessly.”

“What am I?” the creation asked, the words coming out in a low, gravelly voice. No, not quite low - the upper middle ranges. Tenor. It just sounded lower compared to his creator’s lightA, fluttery treble.

“Oh,” his creator replied, sitting back on his stool, hands resting on his thighs as he tilted his head back to contemplate the question. “Well, I am afraid the official word for it is an “abomination,” but I really feel that doesn’t quite do you justice.”

“I feel like an abomination,” the creation muttered, turning his face away from his creator, letting his gaze drop to his body and his empty abdominal cavity.

“You say that,” his creator scoffed, grabbing a piece of chalk from his cart and using it to draw runic symbols inside his creation’s abdomen. “But you should see the other abominations. They’re hulking, sloppily made constructs with barely two thoughts to rub together. You’re leaps and bounds above them, baby; you’re practically perfect.”

Somehow, he didn’t feel perfect, but rather than argue, he hunched his shoulders and quietly mumbled, “Can you call me something else?”

“Yes, I suppose you do need a proper name,” his creator agreed, sitting back as he finished his runes. While his fingers tapped thoughtfully against the table, something yellow and gelatinous bubbled from the markings, filling his creation’s entire abdomen without spilling over. While he grabbed the ribcage from the other torso and and slipped it into his creation’s, he shrugged and asked, “Do you have any preferences, or should I choose?”

He thought about it for a little while, as his creator spooled out more string and folded the flaps of his skin together, but try as he might, he couldn’t quite come up with a name that he liked. Sounds and syllables floated through his mind, but none of it fit together in a way that felt right. There was something there, he felt sure of it, but it never quite reached the tip of his tongue. Finally, as his creator finished stitching up his chest, he gave up with a frustrated sigh and dropped his head back against the table. “I guess not.”

“Hmm.” His creator nodded, tying off the final stitch and reaching up as he smiled at his creation. “You’ll be my little Jousu.”

And then he booped Jousu on the nose.


End file.
